"What are you trying to tell me kid, that you don't like Zep?"

Them Crooked Vultures- Them Crooked Vultures, 2009: Self-Released

Though rumored to have been in the works for years, an LA-based group calling themselves Them Crooked Vultures have released their first album together just last November. Having chosen this record based solely on it's name and recent release date, I was a at first little disappointed by their self-released, self-titled debut. It sounded like too many other bands I had heard before for me to really consider it. I’ve been experiencing this sonic déjà vu a lot lately, I have gotten used to hearing nothing new.

It was at or about the third or fourth track that I figured this band, TCV for short, deserved a little more looking into. Turns out the reason TCV sounds like so many other bands I’d heard before, is because TCV was so many other bands I’d heard before. It seems I had stumbled upon another supergroup, giving new meaning to the phrase “Power Trio”. With a combined career length that spans almost a century of Rock and Roll, the lineup is certainly impressive. On guitar: Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal); on drums, where he belongs, in my opinion: Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Probot, Foo Fighters); and on bass guitar, and pretty much everything else: Mr. John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin).

Tracks like “Elephants”, “New Fang” and “Reptiles” sufficiently get the Led out, and you can definitely hear the influence Homme has on most of the album (most notably on the tracks “Gunmen”, “Dead End Friends” and Spinning in Daffodils”) . Also, Dave Grohl is infinitely preferable to me sitting down than standing up. He is a rock drummer before he is anything else. If this band were made up of different people (people who I weren’t pretty confident knew what they’re doing), this album would definitely come off as hackneyed and sloppy. The fact remains though, that they’re all pretty good at what they do, which makes it that much easier to get away with ripping themselves off. And nobody really cares when you do that anyway.

While lyrics like “fictionary” won’t earn them any points in my book, I’m willing to overlook such obvious grammatical foibles in the presence of heavy riffs and some nasty synths. Nothing about their name suggests a strict adherence to the conventions of written (or spoken) English anyway. Despite never actually going up to “eleven”, this album does know how to rock. It’s an album that you more than likely will have to listen to more than once. It’s a grower, not a shower (and yes, that is a cock rock analog).

Overall: 3 thumbs up, or 7 out of 10